snaps

What do you do when both hands are full but you want that piece of toast in front of you? Dive in face first!



Demonstrating his floor sweeping talents.

light reading

I'm going to request my maternity notes and any other records the hospital may have, mostly out of curiosity and partially so that I can have immediate access to them next time round. In a way, I'm really looking forward to reading through everything to get their "take" on the situation. On the other hand, the thought of reliving the weeks before and after Jack's birth makes my stomach feel a bit funny. Either way, I'm sure one day Jack will find it fascinating to read about his scan measurements and the results of his mother's infinite urine tests. For those of you in the UK, apparently you can get your records free of charge within 40 days of your hospital stay. After that point, you will have to pay a fee (anywhere from £10-£50) to get copies or you can view them at the hospital for free. I believe that they keep your records for something like 25 years.

I was surprised when I didn't get my maternity notes back when I was discharged from hospital. I carried them around with me at all times from around 20 weeks onwards, until they got dog-eared and crinkled from being stuffed in my bag. I took them out periodically to read through my midwife's scribbles and study Jack's scan data. By the time I ended up staying in the hospital, the midwives had to staple extra pages to the back of my notebook. Pages and pages of various people's handwriting filled my book, detailing my visits to the Day Assessment Unit and chronicling my days in hospital. The entries ranged from blood pressure readings to details like "mum feeling weepy today". It's full of things that I've forgotten about, little tidbits that will be important again one day. It's mine and I want it back, dammit.

Or at least I think I want it back. Maybe I'll just keep it in a drawer for a while.

i *heart* my husband's relatives

Paul's oldest brother, his lovely wife, and Harry the Dog came up for a visit last weekend. They absolutely adore Jack, and I love how much they're taken by him. On Saturday, they took the dogs and Jack out for a stroll and on Sunday, they took Jack into Cambridge for lunch and sightseeing. It gave me a chance to finally attack the garden and chop my way through the jungle that is our backyard. I can't really do any work to the garden when Jack's around because there's nowhere to put him to protect him from potential dog poo, a deep and very cold pond, or yummy looking rocks/dirt/weeds/bugs. I managed to cut back most of the overgrown plants, although the pond plants are beyond my powers and require a bulldozer. It was lovely to work on the garden with two waggy dogs following me around. Roll on summer.

Jack was coughing a lot at night and kept waking himself up. At one point, I was cuddling him back to sleep but every time I tried to put him down, he let out a very pitiful cry of "mama mama mama mama!" I know I complained that Jack wasn't communicating yet, but I didn't really want it to happen like this. Breaks a mother's heart, it does.

Jack hadn't been walking much lately, so it was surprising to see him walking most of yesterday afternoon. He stood up with his two little feet spread wide apart, toddled across the room, fell down on all fours, turned with a look that said "Am I great, or what?!", and got right back up again. He kept it up for ages, absolutely thrilled with himself. Is it just me, or does it seem like kids learn skills in batches? It's like one day every few weeks they demonstrate a dozen new talents.

While I was vacuuming yesterday, I turned around to find Jack mimicking my back and forth movements with a broom I'd left against the wall. He was sitting on the floor pushing the broom across it, and did this happily the entire time I cleaned up. Wonder if I can teach him how to run the washing machine?

That is all.

shocked and dismayed in godmanchester

I quite enjoy the television programme "Ready Steady Cook", especially if you hit the mute button whenever Ainsley opens his mouth. For those of you not in the know, it's like a game show where contestants bring in a bag of ingredients (usually costing less than £5) and celebrity chefs have to whip up a few dishes in under 20 minutes. I always found it quite impressive, particularly when contestants would bring in bags containing things like pickled eggs and Mars bars. Before the chefs begin, contestants explain why they chose the items they brought in while the chefs wrack their brains thinking up ideas. Then they cook like the dickens and end up with around four or more different dishes, and the audience votes on which chef's food looks tastiest. With me so far?

Right, so, yesterday I made a horrifying discovery. Contestants do not actually pick what they bring! A message posted by a former contestant to the BBC web site stated that she didn't get to choose the items in her bag and had to make up reasons why she included these items. I started to get suspicious a few weeks ago when one of the chefs said "I was thinking about this in the car on the way over..." when he was considering what to make. Now how would he be able to think about something he supposedly hasn't seen yet? Eh? EH?

Pffft.

and now, back to the baby babble

We got Jack's MMR appointment in the post yesterday, and I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I should take the day off in case he reacts badly to it, but then maybe he'll be perfectly fine. Maybe he won't react until days afterwards. Maybe I'll be the only one who cries, like the other three times I've taken him in for immunisations. Do all children react badly to the MMR shot?

So after my post about Jack not gesturing or communicating, I picked Jack up from the nursery, put him in his car seat, and he pointed out the window and made some sort of noise that may have meant "Goodness, look at that. How very interesting." He has actually been making more sounds that seem to relate to what he's looking at. For example, he'll toddle after Jasper shouting "DA!" repeatedly as Jasper runs in the opposite direction. It makes me wonder if I'm simply not recognising Jack's attempts to say words. We went out with friends for lunch last weekend and one of the girls (who's Jack's age) was playing with a mobile phone. She looked at it and made a noise that to me sounded a lot like "uh", but her mother exclaimed enthusiastically, "That's right! Hello!" Either we (parents in general) are interpreting any noise that may remotely resemble a word as an attempt to talk, or our children are in fact communicating with us. Who knows? Either way, I'm just not going to worry about it anymore.

The nursery workers were very excited when I picked Jack up on Wednesday. "He stood on his own! And then he WALKED!" they told me, genuinely pleased. I always feared that Jack would take his first steps at nursery and I would have to hear about it secondhand like this, but to my great joy, I was able to tell them that we had already witnessed it at home and yes, it was very exciting. It was the first time he'd done it at nursery but I am eternally grateful that we saw it at home first.

Nose picking seems to have stopped for the moment. He has now moved on to sticking his face in my chest, shaking his head back and forth, and going "bwahbwahbwahbwah!!" I have no idea what this means.

oh, was it supposed to be fun?

Why mothers should be offered caesareans

Jo Revill thinks that traumatic or potentially dangerous births can be avoided if women opt for elective caesareans. She argues that it's an issue of choice, and that encouraging women to have a caesarian is "doing both mother and child a great service." Here are some excerpts from the article with my comments below.

"We are fast approaching the point where logically we should encourage women to have a caesarean whether or not they have a medical or psychological reason for wanting one."
No. We should inform women of their birth options and the consequences of each, and then let them decide what's best for them. One birth choice shouldn't be "encouraged" over another, particularly when it involves elective surgery.

"By having a planned surgical delivery, you simply avoid the biggest risk factor of all: the possibility of an emergency caesarean."
I might have a problem with my appendix and tonsils one day. I think I'll saunter over to my hospital and have them removed, just in case. Having a caesarean to avoid a caesarean seems like flawed logic to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

"...by taking away the unpredictability, pain and fear associated with normal birth you may be doing both mother and child a great service."
Because as we all know, major abdominal surgery is predictable, painless, and has no emotional consequences. Especially if you need to recover from said surgery on no sleep whilst taking care of a tiny human being. And being its sole source of food.

"Some 30 per cent of women [who have vaginal births] suffer urinary incontinence afterwards."
Which is from being pregnant, not from giving birth vaginally. C-section mothers suffer from this too, because the pelvic floor is weakened from carrying a baby.

"The guilt that a woman can be made to feel for exercising choice can be terrible. When Kate Winslet had to undergo an emergency caesarean for the birth of her first child, Mia, the actress admitted she 'felt a failure' in some way."
How is an emergency caesarean a choice? How can Winslet's situation be compared to someone who elects to have a caesarean?

My main concern with this article is that is omits some fundamental issues about caesareans. There is no mention of the increase in ectopic pregnancies, uterine rupture in future pregnancies, bladder and bowel complications, adhesions, and difficulties breastfeeding in c-section mothers. Like Revill's sister, my surgery itself was fairly calm and downright civil - it was the recovery that was unexpectedly difficult and traumatising. For her to infer that a surgical birth is always going to be calmer, less painful, and a better experience than a vaginal birth is simply irresponsible journalism. Of course women should be allowed to make birth choices, but it's hugely important that these are informed choices. Otherwise, we're perpetuating the misconception that c-section recovery takes 6 weeks and try to avoid the vacuum and car for a wee while, dear.

I will try for a vaginal birth next time, but there are specific situations in which I will opt for a c-section. If there is no choice but induction, I will choose a repeat section, for example. I am not opposed to caesareans; I am opposed to misinformation. Shame on you, Guardian.

just don't call me a b*tch

You know how dogs experience phantom pregnancies? I think I'm going through that right now. I know that I'm not pregnant (really), but I keep having symptoms that I haven't experienced since I was carrying Jack. I had heartburn for almost a week (which I never experienced before I was pregnant, and it went away when Jack was a week old), I've been nauseous off and on for a while now, I've had non-PMT weeks where I've suddenly bloated one size up, strong cravings, weird dreams, the whole lot. I have been having this recurring dream in which I find out that I'm pregnant, then I go into a panic because I realise that I've been taking numerous cold tablets, asthma inhalers, and other very bad things for teeny tiny babies. It's all been a bit weird.

So many people I know are pregnant right now - I must be experiencing sympathy pregnancy. Give me your nausea, your bloating, your cravings for dill pickle popcorn. I will feel it with you! I truly am very much looking forward to being pregnant again - scared witless about quite a few things, but looking forward to it nonetheless. It's just that I've got to get into better shape before this happens. I have a theory that the high blood pressure at the end of my last pregnancy (thus leading to intervention and the c-section) may have been due to being very overweight. Well, that and being stressed out by numerous people forcing me to pee into a plastic jug for 24 hours and sticking me with needles, unsuccessfully attempting to draw blood. But I digress. The plan this time is to slim down to a healthy weight, get into shape and get my heart as fit as possible, and hopefully avoid a repeat of last time. Ideally, I've got about 7-14 lbs. left to lose (the weight ticker above is really the countdown to my first goal) and lots of running and weight training to do. Then I think it'll be time to start trying for Jack's sibling before I get too old to be bothered.

Perhaps this phantom pregnancy is a trial run? I'll pass on the 'roids, thanks.